


Don't You Dare

by MystiTrinqua



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Author has Many Feelings about the S4 finale, Basically they cry and cuddle, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Fluffy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by Fanart, Keith needs impulse control, M/M, Most of them are pooled here, Spoilers for S4, discussion of suicide, i guess, klangst, self indulgence fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-20 00:21:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12421200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MystiTrinqua/pseuds/MystiTrinqua
Summary: It wasn't until they all got back to the ship that they found out how Keith had almost never come back to them.Lance decides then and there that if Keith refused to listen to his own impulse control, he would have to do it for him.Either way, he's never letting him do something like that again.





	Don't You Dare

**Author's Note:**

> So I saw some fanart by coralreefskim (post ref: 166393236858) on tumblr, and it would not stop ruining me until I wrote this.  
> Totally self indulgent, I'm not even sorry. If I can't shout at Keith for being dumb at least I can make Lance do it. :')
> 
> As usual, find me on tumblr as mystitrinqua.  
> Kudos/comments feed the starving author.
> 
> This was a nice break from kinktober kicking my ass, jfc.

As soon as Shiro and Allura disappeared with Lotor into one of the secluded interrogation rooms just off the bridge, the rest of them let out a collective breath they hadn’t been aware they were holding. Lance was the first to break away and head for the lounge area, wordlessly sinking onto a sofa as he tuned out the others filtering into the room behind him. His hands still shook in his lap, the dregs of a useless fight or flight reflex.

They had been in some risky situations, but this was the first time that the solid _fact_ of his own death had stared Lance down from so close before. From what he’d heard so far if it weren’t for Lotor firing on that battle ship they would all be dead. At least, all except for—

“Give yourself more credit, Keith. Matt won’t shut up about your flying out there.” Pidge’s words tuned sharply back into focus as Lance barely saw a flash of muted purple in the doorway. Keith was already pulling away, already leaving them again, and the sight caused another sharp chunk of ice to settle in his stomach to partner with the heaviness that had invaded him the day Shiro just let him walk away.

“It’s nothing, Pidge, really.” Keith was talking too fast, like he was trying to cut off a conversation before it started as his eyes flicked across their faces, and then he turned to leave, the door to the hallway starting to slide open. “Any of you would have been the same, in that fight. There wasn’t much room for anything _but_ good flying.”

“He also mentioned,” Pidge’s tone was delicate but distinctly icy, now, and Lance’s head raised to catch the glare she was levelling in Keith’s direction. Hunk was watching her uneasily, and he found himself doing the same. “that you tried to charge the ship’s shields head on. In some tiny drone fighter ship with a compromised hull and a broken wing. That you would have _died_ , if Lotor hadn’t—” Keith’s face went slack, then, open with panic as he took a step back. And then another, out of the door, which started to sweep shut and block him from view. Footsteps sounded down the corridor heavily as though Keith was _running away from them,_ and Lance’s fingers curled to fists in his lap as they began to shake harder, nails leaving angry red crescents in his skin. “Hey, I’m not done! Get back here!”

“Leave it, Pidge.” Hunk’s shoulders slumped as he pulled her down against the sofa. “You know it won’t change him any. Keith was just trying to help us, at the time. It would have been the only thing he could think of to do… I mean, he was alone, don’t forget, and probably thought he’d never see us again if he didn’t do _something,_ y’know?”

Tension was building, coiling through Lance’s body like the shrill whistle of a kettle stuck over an open flame as they continued to talk around his utter lack of response. The sound of Keith’s footfalls getting quieter played on repeat in his mind in a staccato rhythm that seemed to get faster and more frantic the more times it curved back on itself. Or that could have just been his own heartbeat, his own pulse thudding dully in his head, his body still panicking around him as his thoughts spiralled uselessly in the dark. _‘He nearly died. We all nearly died.’_ Breathing out shakily, he folded his arms tightly across his chest and hunched only to feel his chest clench in panic at the familiarity of the gesture on someone else’s body. _‘I just want to go home. I just want to live. I want him to live.’_

“That’s no goddamn excuse.” Pidge’s voice was shaking and she buried her face into Hunk’s shoulder as he pulled her into a hug, the sight making Lance stumble to his feet. “We’re supposed to be a _team,_ Hunk. He doesn’t just get to.. to just run off and _do things like that,_ he c-can’t just.. just _die—”_ Her voice cracked completely then, low, loud sobs shaking her as her body looked more and more small compared to the Yellow Paladin beside her. One look at Hunk’s face showed that he was making no effort to hold back his own tears where Pidge couldn’t see them as he rubbed soothing circles in her back. They looked as ashen as he knew he did, still weak with the shock of knowing that they’d nearly died without being able to get back to Earth. Sometimes they needed to cry. It was _okay_ to cry, and it was all he could do to remind himself of that as he swiped his fingers angrily across his eyes to get rid of the tears.

They were here and had each other for support, to see them through it till the shaking stopped, until it was far enough in the past that they could start making grim jokes about it.

But Keith was _alone._

The thought was enough to have him lurching into motion, ignoring the sniffle-laden calls the other two sent after him as he lunged stiffly out of the door. He could feel the warmth of his connection to Red flare up, his connection to _Keith_ too. No matter what he insisted to the others, to Lance, Keith would always be the true Red Paladin. Yet again Lance was taking his place at his expense, and everything about that was _wrong.  
_ “Help me, Red. Help me find him.”

He closed his eyes and followed the lead of Keith’s lion, finding him resting with one hand on the wall at the door to his room. He barely reacted with surprise when Lance pushed him all the way through it, and kept walking until Keith’s back hit his mattress. Kept going until he was right in Keith’s lap, his fingers tight in the accursedly soft fabric of the hood to his Marmora suit.

“What—” Keith’s voice was husky and tight with emotion but Lance didn’t _care_ anymore. He just couldn’t bring himself to give a damn or stop to cross-examine anything when Keith was right there in front of him. Warm, and alive, and glaring at him in the frustration that he was only just seeing for the defense mechanism that it really was instead of letting it become a challenge to rise to. Having him here, so real and so close, made a totally new sense of protectiveness swell in Lance’s chest. Pidge was right. They were supposed to be a team. Hell, it had been his own words that gave birth to the idea that they wouldn’t be eternal rivals, only at the time when he told Keith _we do make a good team_ he’d been half delirious after the explosion and all the Sendak-related shenanigans that had taken place. He hadn’t forgotten the ‘bonding moment’ and probably never would, but his refusal to acknowledge it had become the desire to keep the memory of it as something just for himself. A secret he could cling to all the times Keith didn’t come home to them after being pulled away on yet another mission. It wasn’t as though it hadn’t occurred to him that one day Kolivan may come back alone with nothing but Keith’s knife and an apology on his lips, Blades agents died in the field all the time.

“Don’t you _fucking dare.”_

“Let me—” Keith was glaring at him, now, struggling to push upward against his weight, move him, and Lance was having none of it, panic and sadness curling like a whip in his chest at the possibility of not feeling Keith against him warm and alive and _here._

“—Don’t..”

A single solitary tear-drop fell onto Keith’s face, and his own eyes widened in response, face smoothed in almost childlike shock as another joined it. Then another, glinting innocently in the low light of a bedroom that he hadn’t occupied in months. Shock at the reality of how much Lance actually did care what happened to him was all he could feel right now. Despite all their back-and-forth. Despite all the shit Lance had been giving him for turning up to things late. Despite the fact that Lance was equally as guilty as Shiro in letting him walk away, that he hadn’t stopped to think about the real reason why Keith had _wanted_ to leave. Choosing to jump into the cold on his own terms, before he expected to be shoved out into it with a door slammed in his face.

_Six pilots for five lions, Keith._

_Leave the math to Pidge._

The distant echo of a conversation that had been ringing deafeningly loud since the day Shiro successfully reclaimed the Black Lion. Since the day he’d never piloted Black again if he could help it. Lance’s face sank into  the junction where his neck met his collarbone, warm and wet even with the layers of vacuum-protective flight-suit between them, and he could feel his fingers burying deeper into the soft fabric of the hood at his shoulders and tugging. Like Lance was trying to bury into _him,_ too, knit himself so tightly in Keith’s heart that he could never leave him behind, even if he ran fast enough to put whole galaxies between them.

“Don’t you dare.”

“I.. I don’t understand..”  Despite the stutter in his voice he couldn’t help but lean into the touch, wrapping his arms tightly around Lance’s back as he felt more than heard the brunet start to break down. He wasn’t exactly _surprised_ that everyone was going through this kind of after-effect. They hadn’t been exposed to nearly as much death as he had over the course of his work with Kolivan. With Voltron’s defensive capability they were safe, and relatively secluded from the realities of this war in a way that Keith had long since stopped having the luxury of being and he had to keep in mind that this was new to them, had to be there for Lance while he worked through the shock. “It.. could have saved you, saved Voltron. It would have been okay, if my death meant—”

“Shut up.” Lance gasped, surprisingly venomous to say how quiet and choked he sounded. “Just. Just _shut up._ You don’t g-get to just _decide_ that, just because you _run off_ by yourself all the t-time.” He was regurgitating what Pidge had hissed earlier, but it was the truth, and so help him this time Keith would hear it.

He was sobbing, now, shaking his head rapidly against Keith’s chest and making absolutely no effort to hide his desperation. Clutching him tighter until they were pressed so close it hurt, and trying and failing to form the words to make Keith realise the impact of what he’d nearly done. To chastise hm for even letting the idea that his sacrifice would have been okay cross his mind. It _wasn’t_ okay, and it never would be. They were fighting a war and he knew that. He knew he was being selfish putting one of their lives above the fate of the entire resistance… but at the end of the day there was no trade-off Lance was prepared to make for something as valuable as Keith’s life. If that made him selfish, then he was selfish, and he would admit to it with pride. Every damn Galran in existence could shove their ‘victory or death’ mentality straight in the nearest black hole for all he cared as long as it didn’t become a viewpoint that Keith accepted as his own.

To hear him talk about it so clinically, as if he thought it wouldn’t have any affect on the rest of the team, was more than Lance could handle. He looked up, biting his lip, and wanted to scream when Keith still didn’t look like he’d understood a damn thing. He was shocked, guilt and fear written all over his face, but it wasn’t because he understood. Insecurity was all too familiar a bedfellow for Lance not to recognise it on sight when he saw it in Keith’s eyes and suddenly all of his pulling away, his refusal to lead them, his being so adamant that the Blade of Marmora needed him became an insignificant layer of cobwebs over the truth. Easily brushed aside and confronted.

“Y-You.. thought we wouldn’t care?!” Lance’s whisper carried an unmistakable echo of the same fury Pidge had turned on him minutes before and again, Keith shrank back. Shook his head in feeble, tiny movements and screwed his eyes shut as if that would stop Lance talking on it’s own, and the brunet could see it all written on his face clear as day, now. All of Keith’s isolationism and fear of abandonment was laid out for him in the shallow breaths and the fact that bringing it up was the thing that had finally brought tears to the corners of Keith’s eyes. _That,_ and not _dying._ It was enough to make his heart break. “You think we don’t need you anymore. You really.. god. You _clueless bastard.”_

Ignoring the tear-stained mess that was his own skin, Lance shifted his weight back against Keith’s hips so that he could have use of his hands without having to save one to stabilise himself. He couldn’t have fathomed everything leading up to this moment if he’d tried, the day they met, but he realised now that this had been inevitable from the start. They’d just taken a very long time to get here.

Cradling Keith’s face in his fingers, he moved to stroke away the first few tears that were making salty track marks down pale cheeks, the pads of his thumbs gliding softly to disrupt their path and take them away as he felt the body underneath him shudder. It only took seconds for the singular drops to become a flood that he couldn’t seem to stop and Lance was in a way happy to see.

Their first kiss was wet and clumsy, the two of them pressed together everywhere they physically could, desperate for warmth and touch and the knowledge that neither of them were about to fade away in a burst of fire. Red’s contented purr rumbled through both their minds as they clung to each other, almost enough to bring their latent mental connection roaring to life outside of Voltron itself and this bonding moment felt a lot more intimate than any they’d shared before. It didn’t matter how messy it was. There would be more, and Keith knew that now. Knew from the way Lance hadn’t let go of him once in however long it had been since he hunted him down that there was no chance he’d ever push him out. Lance was right, he really had been such an _idiot._

“Why did.. why did I do that?” Lance hadn’t stopped for more than a second or two when they parted to breathe, pressing soft kisses to every part of Keith’s face and neck that wasn’t barred from him under purple fabric. Mumbling hushed and teary _‘I love you’s’_ and _‘don’t ever do that again’s’_ and soft curses in Spanish that he didn’t understand. For all he knew they could have been prayers, and it was only now that it was all sinking in. Lance’s warm weight in his lap, the way Pidge had choked on her own anger like she was snapping at Matt, like she was _snapping at a brother_ when she was upset with him _._ The way Hunk’s sunny calm had been replaced with a storm for the thirty seconds he’d been able to hold the Yellow Paladin’s eyes without wanting to disappear into the floor. For the first time he could hear the back of his mind taunting him.

_This is what you walked away from like it meant nothing._

“I’m sorry.”

_This is what you nearly threw away today._

“I’m so sorry.”

_All of this._

“I—”

“—Shhh.” Lance was hiccuping every so often, his breaths still coming in fits and starts as he pressed his mouth to Keith’s with all the intensity of a man possessed, dampening all his apologies with hands in his hair and entirely more satisfying brushes of tongue until Keith gave in and stopped trying to speak altogether, a choked whine leaving him when the abrupt tension between them started to change into another type entirely. Keith’s door had locked behind him, the door panel flashing a telltale red, and even if it hadn’t it didn’t seem like anyone was in a rush to come after them at least until Lotor was dealt with.

They had time.


End file.
